Reflections: Kikyou
by Cara W
Summary: Kikyou takes a good long look at what her life has been and what's in store for her future.


I think Kikyou is really cool, and the poor girl's been   
through a lot. Why does everyone hate her so much? 

This is my first Inuyasha fanfic. Reveiws are greatly   
appreciated, I could use the feedback. 

**Update 9/29/01**: Fixed Kikyou's age. Thanks for   
pointing out I had it wrong, Cat Who. 

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**Reflections**: Kikyou   
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I still remember the day they gave me the   
Shikon Jewel. 

I was sixteen. Kaede was eight. We lived by   
ourselves. Our parents had died a few years earlier,   
leaving a fourteen-year-old to take care of   
her little sister and take on her mother's duties   
as priestess. The townspeople helped me raise   
Kaede, of course. Especially after she got in the   
way while I was battling a youkai and got hurt.   
I think they took such good care of her because   
they felt sorry for her. I had a reputation for   
sometimes being cold and unfeeling, and I know   
how some of the villagers felt about me. I   
knew about the hard stares directed at my back   
and the whispered words of derision exchanged   
when they thought I couldn't hear. None of   
them dared to say anything to my face. I had   
power and status; my parents had been important. 

And my little sister loved me with a particular   
fierceness, and none of them wanted to hurt her   
by insulting me. 

I was powerful in those days, and I suppose my   
reputation spread. Less than a week after my   
sixteenth birthday, a married couple with their   
son came to the village requesting to talk with me.   
Kaede led them to our cottage, and they asked   
me to keep the jewel, to purify and protect it.   
I accepted the responsibility, and may very well   
have been damned from the moment I took the   
jewel from the man's hand. 

That couple was Sango's grandparents. Their son   
was her father, later killed at the hands of his own   
son when Naraku chose Kohaku as a pawn. 

A year passed by peacefully enough, and I was   
seventeen, and Kaede was nine. And then he appeared   
out of nowhere, his long white hair flying behind him   
as he attacked the village. I still don't know where   
Inuyasha came from. I've since learned about his   
lineage; I know about Sesshoumaru and who his   
father was. I can't even begin to imagine what his   
childhood was like. 

He tried to steal the Jewel, and I fought him off   
easily. I was more than a match for him those days,   
at the height of my powers. As time passed and he   
showed up more and more, I got used to him. Kaede   
never did. She hated him as much as she loved me. 

The first time he didn't try to attack was about six   
months after he had initially come out of the forest   
to take our little village by storm. I was in a field   
near the village, watching over Kaede and several   
of the village children as they gathered herbs for the   
local healer. I heard a noise in the bushes behind   
me, and then he was there. We had last fought just   
a few days before, and he asked me once again why I   
refused to kill him. 

That day changed everything. To this day I'm not sure   
how I answered him, or even if I had time to answer   
before one of the children turned and saw him next to   
me. She screamed. He swore and left, disappearing back   
into the forest. After that day, we began to grow closer.   
Our battles were over, and we would sit and cautiously   
exchange a few brief words, and then our conversations   
began to get longer and longer. Kaede snuck from the   
village once and caught us together, and I could barely   
calm her down. She still harbored a bitter dislike for   
him, hating him more than anything. 

I loved him. 

It wasn't long after I realized that that Onigumo   
appeared. Kaede warned me about him time after   
time, often yelling and once becoming so frantic   
that she reduced herself to tears of anger and fear.   
She knew him for what he was, somehow sensing   
what he would become. I didn't fear him. He   
was paralyzed and would never move from his   
spot in that cave. 

Then he disappeared. Kaede was terrified and   
tried to persuade me to take some sort of action,   
but there was nothing I could do. I still believed   
myself to be strong enough to defeat him, anyway. 

The next day I sealed Inuyasha away and died.   
I had been mortally wounded and went willingly   
to my death, taking the Shikon Jewel with me.   
I believed if it was gone, out of reach of those   
who would use it for evil, the world might be   
improved in some small way. 

I found out I was wrong fifty years later when I   
was ripped from the afterlife by a demoness named   
Urasue, given a hastily constructed body of dirt   
and bones, and reduced to stealing souls to survive   
as I watched my beloved fall in love with a girl who   
has my face. 

And survive I must, until the day a hanyou named   
Inuyasha dies with me. I died hating him, and   
some part of my soul is forever locked in statis   
in that position. I hate him, and I will not return   
to my rest without bringing him with me. And   
yet I somehow love him still. I didn't want to   
return to this life, and yet a part of me is glad   
even for this sham body of dirt and bones. My   
soul is torn, pulled in two different directions. I   
cling to the emotions I died with, and yet desire   
nothing more than to forget the past and see the   
truth, and the future. 

His future, that is. My future is over, except for   
her; the one who had the Jewel enclosed within   
her flesh. The one who is me and isn't. My   
reincarnation. She is his future, and loves him as   
he loves her. I know him well enough to see that,   
even if he doesn't know it himself. When the   
jewel is whole once again, he will become human   
to be with her. 

I see that too. 

And as for my own existence… I am here to kill   
him, and yet can't. She won't let me, though I   
have the power. And I can't allow myself to do it.   
I loved him once, too much to destroy him now. 

So I wander, still sealing souls to live, still not   
knowing my true purpose. 

When their quest is finished, I will perhaps go   
quietly to my grave once again. I know Inuyasha   
and Kaede would prefer it that way. My presence   
makes them uncomfortable. They don't like seeing   
me like this, a shadow of the past that doesn't belong   
in the present. It's not what I want to be, not how I   
want to be seen. And I have my own discomforts,   
here in the present, fifty years after my death. It   
hurts to simply look at my sister; her age reminds   
me of how long I was gone. I should return to the   
afterlife. 

But I can't, and won't. Peace is still denied to me.   
I still can't rest. 

Sometimes I wonder if Naraku ordered Urasue to bring   
me back. 

Naraku.. Hell. A fitting name, for Hell is where he has   
put the the people whose lives he has touched. Myself.   
Inuyasha. Kagome. Kaede. Sango. Miroku. Shippo. 

Naraku is truly to blame, for all of this. 

Perhaps soon I'll make him pay, and claim peace for   
myself once again. 


End file.
